The invention is located in the field of further processing printed products. Method and installation according to the invention serve the supply of individual quantities of flat part products to a serial subsequent processing, wherein the part products of a quantity are in particular different from each other. Method and installation serve in particular the supplementation of printed products conveyed in a serial conveying stream by adding a quantity of part products to each one of the printed products.
Printed products such as e.g. newspapers or periodicals are often supplemented by adding various part products such as e.g. inserts, prospectuses, single leaflets, smaller brochures, reply cards, or even flat sample articles or sample sachets. To this end, the printed products are usually conveyed along a supplementation track past a row of feed points, wherein at each feed point one part product of a specific part product type is added to each printed product, for instance by inserting the part product into, or placing it upon the printed product. The supplemented printed products are then packaged e.g. in batches or individually.
In particular if high capacities are required, the realization of the supplementation track demands elaborate installations such as e.g. an insertion drum with various feed points being equipped depending on format and kind of the part product type to be handled, wherein the part products often need to be supplied manually to the feed points. The greater the number of diverse part products to be added to each printed product, the greater the number of feed points needed and the larger or longer the supplementation installation becomes. If the number of the part products varies in successive supplementation processes, the installation needs to be dimensioned to suit the greatest number to be expected and it is on average therefore utilized to a limited extent only. If the types of part products differ greatly in successive supplementation processes, feed point equipment may have to be exchanged or reset between such processes.
It is the object of the invention to create a method and an installation for supplying individual quantities of, in particular diverse, part products to a serial sub-sequent processing, in particular, it serves for supplementing printed products conveyed in series, by adding a quantity of part products to each printed product. Therein the invention is to simplify such supply in particular concerning the installation and all the same the invention is to enable, compared with state of the art methods, similar or greater capacities. Nevertheless, the method according to the invention should not limit either the properties of the part products as such, or the diversity of these properties, nor the way in which the part products are manufactured.